Menus unreadable

Suddenly all my menus have switched into a weird font, in which every letter is an A with a box around it. So "FILE" comes out "AAAA". Under the "AAAA" menu, you find a list, all of which are spelled with all "A"s. "NEW FOLDER" is "AAAAAAAAAA" Even on the desktop and the finder, the icons are labeled the same way, but if I switch to list view, everything is normal. Within applications the menus are like this but the actual function of the application is fine.
Needless to say this is driving me nuts. I tried restarting a couple of times and tried Disk First Aid but it didn't help. However when I started up under the Install CD, all the menus were fine.
Thanks for any help.

Hi Mr. Dan,
Sounds like a corrupted font... this might help until someone else has a better suggestion. I believe Mac OS X uses Lucinda Grande for the Menu.
Validating fonts:
If fonts are not displayed as expected when you open documents or you cannot open documents, it's possible fonts have been corrupted. You can validate fonts to confirm they are still safe to use, and remove any corrupted fonts you find. (Can also occur in Menus)
Take care not to remove system fonts, located in /System/Library/Fonts; removing system fonts could cause some applications to quit unexpectedly.
To validate fonts:
Open Font Book and select one or more installed fonts to check.
Choose File > Validate Font.
In the Font Validation window, review the fonts listed for warnings or errors. Use the pop-up menu to display warnings and errors separately, if necessary.
For fonts with warnings or errors, click the disclosure triangle next to the font to see which validation rules show errors.
To remove a corrupted font, click the checkbox next to the font. Make sure fonts you want to keep are not checked. Then click the Remove Checked button.
You can also use the Console utility to troubleshoot problems with installed fonts. In the console.log window, type "font" or a font name (such as "Arial") in the Filter field to find font-related log messages.
You can validate font files before installing the fonts. To do so, in Font Book choose File > Validate Files. Browse to and select a font file to validate and click Open. Font Book displays the Font Validation window and indicates whether it found problems with the font.
Carolyn

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edited 2x

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<mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
Cell: 082 4900 124
Home: 011 883 2582
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